


Complacent In Knowing

by t0talcha0s



Category: BioShock
Genre: Discuses Sex very breifly as it takes place post-sex, F/M, Infidelity, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 09:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11506200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: Diane McClintock lived daily with the pain of knowing her fiancé did not love her, but it was never so bad as it was in those intimate moments.





	Complacent In Knowing

**Author's Note:**

> Definitely heavily influenced by the 33 rpm version of Jolene by Dolly Parton. Check it out.

Diane never believed he didn't love her. She just wouldn't let herself. It was a fact that he loved her, a crystallized and mounted fact that she touted about on her fingers each day and sparkled in the envy of waitresses and friends. Through this display she was convinced he loved her, and she wouldn't let herself believe anything else. 

Diane, however, knew he didn't love her. It was a fact buried deep in her chest and nestled beneath her ribs. She could feel it when her heart rate sped with love or with adrenaline and it hurt more then anything she'd experienced. 

She'd broken her ankle when she was six and she'd fallen down the steps in the church house. The tumble ripped her best dress and bruised her up and down black and blue, a corner of a stair just barely missed her eye. Her father'd held her tightly in his arms all the way to the hospital and wiped away her shrill tears with his fat fingers.

She'd gotten a horrible flu when she had just become a young woman, she'd coughed and hacked and missed weeks of her first year of high school. It left her lungs battered and her cheeks flushed of color. The boy neighbor a few houses down brought her flowers from his backyard in an old wine bottle with the label scratched off and Diane kept them in her room until the petals littered her floor an ugly, tattered brown. 

And she'd met Andrew when she was young and he was beautiful. His teeth captured the light as he spoke and Diane smiled and smiled to try to get him to reciprocate likewise. The small glimpse of dentistry she got in return told her everything she needed to know, it struck her diaphragm quickly as they said their goodbyes and made hers forced and desperate. The truth in that moment hurt more then her ankle and more then her lungs, it curled up deep beneath her heart and laid itself dormant there. She thought it'd never return. 

Here it was though, scorching her chest a fire beneath her breaths. In the aftermath of a moment so intimate it attacked everything she'd exposed to him. She'd held him close, let him slot his smoothly shaven jaw into her neck, murmured to him in those moments how much she adored him, told him how good he was, she's even let herself call it 'lovemaking' instead of 'sex'.

She'd ignored the feeling as it paralyzed her in that time. The pain, the knowing that she'd always known, the numbness of every place he'd touched her. Her skin shivered and goospimpled, raising its own rebellion against her. 

She rose from her sheets, a beautiful silk set that matched the pillows she'd thrown aside in her moments of 'passion'. In her closet she found an emerald green slip, and pulled it slowly over her. The soft glide of fabric was uncomfortable but familiar to her. Nothing felt comfortable. 

Andrew was in the restroom, pissing or shaving or some number of things Diane didn't care about. She held he arms tight around her guts as they rattled and rolled with understanding and the worst part about the whole sensation was not how much it hurt, but the fact that this was not the first time it'd hurt this way. 

She cursed herself for not noticing before, for turning a blind eye to how she'd noticed before, for letting herself be a blank eyed, airheaded fool. She couldn't even be mad at him, even for all he'd done wrong. Everything between him and his favorite Gal and the people hung up like streamers down in Apollo's Square. The ache had always persisted, had strangled her dreams and torn apart her thoughts and stuffed her into housewifery without a husband or a home. 

She felt no better then the dancers at Eve's garden, worse perhaps because she was deluded enough to think that their intimacy meant anything. This reflected on her and shattered in her throat, made her quiet and complacent, if it meant nothing what then did she mean? If he didn't love her what did she matter then? 

Diane returned to her bed, heart beat thrumming above the pain irritating it with every thump. The pain spasmed ever larger with each beat, surrounding her, consuming her and she laid her head on the pillow and clutched her sides and fell onto her left ribs to avoid facing Andrew's bathroom. She willed herself to sleep, knowing that in the morning the pain would be gone and it wouldn't matter anymore and she could believe he loved her again and he could fuck her again and nothing would have changed.

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out @barefootcosplayer on tumblr and please leave any reviews/criticism/love in the comments!


End file.
